


served on a silver platter

by honeybun



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Angst, Emotional Constipation, Fluff, He Tian the heartbreaker, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry if that's confusing haha, M/M, Mutual Pining, No He Tian is not a vampire, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybun/pseuds/honeybun
Summary: Mo Guan Shan can't understand the girls who so confidently hand over their hearts to He Tian, blood pooling in the palm of their hands, thinking he'll give it back.After the fact, they float around school, voices echoing in the halls, calling for him but never receiving an answer. When He Tian catches their eyes, he smiles, blood still dripping from his teeth.{Or, Mo's thoughts leading up to Chapter 322}
Relationships: He Tian & Mo Guanshan (19 Days), He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 211





	served on a silver platter

**Author's Note:**

> hullo! it's me again! <3
> 
> this one just sprung out of me after the new chapter to be honest. i really hope you enjoy it! i can't say how grateful i am for the feedback i've received recently from the fandom, it's so lovely (and motivating!) please let me know your thoughts, i love to hear what you think~
> 
> i've been rereading the whole series and honestly these two love one another too much lmao. i have a lot of inspiration for this pairing so i hope to write more soon - you can find me crying over them on my tumblr @3lji
> 
> i hope you're all safe and well, all my love! xox

He knows He Tian likes girls. Exclusively so. 

So it’s to his own surprise and extreme suspicion when He Tian begins to pay attention to him. Mo Guan Shan. Most definitely _not a girl._

There’s the whole business with Mo Guan Shan almost getting kicked out of school, and the stupid fight he still bitterly regrets between himself and Zhan Zheng Xi. He wakes sometimes in the night thinking of himself stuck behind prison bars, _just like your father,_ he can hear ringing in his ears, feeling once again backed into a corner. Between what he wanted and what everyone else expected from him. 

It’s all too easy to exceed people’s expectations of you when they’re shit.

If he is brave enough he sometimes takes a look and briefly glances at the mark he’s left on Zhan Zheng Xi’s head, a small dimple, that's all. All the proof he needs for the kind of person he’s become, lowering even his own estimations of himself. The small boy that still resides inside his chest somewhere tugs at him, _pleads_ , reminds him of what it used to be like, what _he_ used to be like. It’s easy to quash those voices, that thought, now, with enough practice. 

After the fight He Tian had just started _bothering_ him. Not in a normal way, but in a way which was fingers tugging at his waist, an arm slung over his shoulders. He Tian is full of grabbing hands, arm possessively slung over Mo’s shoulder at any available moment - not letting go, _never_ letting go. Putting up a fight. Mo Guan Shan wonders if He Tian was always like this, grasping at whatever he could, keeping it close to his chest, wanting _more_. It wasn’t _normal_. It didn’t make sense - for He Tian to like him, out of everyone - the girls that fall adoringly at his feet, the boys who doggedly trace his steps and praise his every breath. Why, out of all of them, had he chosen to pursue _Mo Guan Shan._

He feels like he’s being laughed at, that somehow He Tian had reached into his head and plucked out the very thought that Mo tried hard to keep from anyone knowing. It felt like he was taunting him with it, _look what I found, everyone._ It felt dangerous. He Tian was setting out a trap with which to ensnare Mo Guan Shan, and then he’d be able to declare him as wrong, unnatural, _disgusting_. A cosmic joke at his expense, just another brick in the wall, contributing to the thick barricade surrounding Mo Guan Shan’s feeble heart.

When He Tian follows him around and almost _demands_ to be friends he isn’t sure whether it’s with an edge of malice, whether he’s the butt of the joke somewhere within that. It chafes him, the feeling of being a stray, unwanted cat, coaxed inside with a can of tuna and petted begrudgingly. He wanted to swipe out and make him regret it, prove he didn’t like being treated gently, that making friends with a stray gets you scratched and bitten, a tetanus shot at the doctors. That he doesn’t accept any type of charity, any _kindness_ , especially from someone like _him_. 

The first time he goes to He Tian’s apartment he almost feels smug, glad that the bastard lives alone, that he didn’t have anything but his money. He’s glad he’s suffering somewhat, too, things not all as perfect as they seem. Seeing the barren floors, everything about He Tian’s lonely inner life laid bare to him. It made him feel better about returning to his own shitty apartment, where his mother would welcome him, warm at least with her love. He wouldn’t call He Tian’s place a _home_ , and, oddly enough, He Tian doesn’t seem to either. The fact that He Tian doesn’t even pretend makes him frown, his idea that He Tian was likely an arrogant bastard not quite fitting into his actions - here, now. 

He'd cooked for him, getting increasingly annoyed at the ever present commentary from the arch of the door where He Tian leans casually, idiot observations and suggestions - some of them too soft and velvety to trust, others cruel and biting, which he’s more used to, he can work with those. He almost enjoys accidentally fucking it up, when the lid comes off and there’s soy sauce everywhere. But then he _doesn’t_ enjoy it, sitting in his stomach strangely when He Tian eats his stew anyway. His complaints die down and they eat together in silence, soy sauce saturating through all of the subtle flavour. 

‘Been eatin’ takeaway for fuckin’ months,’ says He Tian, shovelling more stew into his mouth.

That’s what gets him, the thing that Mo Guan Shan can’t quite get rid of no matter how hard he tries, the thing he hadn't bet on, had tried cutting it from his chest only to find it back there the moment he pulls away, the thing he never expected. He feels _sorry_ for him. 

He never thought he’d feel pity for _He Tian_. 

When He Tian asks whether his family ever had a restaurant, he can almost detect awkwardness in He Tian’s body, leaning up against the counter stiffly, voice betraying his interest. It feels almost friendly, like he really wants to know. Like He Tian actually _cares_. Mo doesn’t want to believe that he might. He answers defensively, in a way which doesn’t welcome any more delving into his life, this intrusion quite enough now, thank you. 

Mo Guan Shan knows he’s angling for him to stay, irritating him and trying to provoke a fight just to prolong the time he’s there, then coddling with sweeter words Mo doesn’t trust. He wonders how lonely He Tian must be to seek the company of a person like himself, in fights and hissed words and threats. By the time he gets home he sits with his mother in their small living room and watches her favourite tv shows, no grievance passing from Mo’s lips. When he goes to bed he lingers by her door when he says goodnight, doesn’t pull away too quickly when she presses him into a hug, his gangly form draping over hers. He has her, doesn’t he? That’s a damn sight more than what He Tian has. But it always was Guan Shan’s compassion that got him into the worst fights - pressed up against a wall with blood dripping thickly from his ears. 

For whatever reason, he tries to be kind then. He Tian makes it hard. He always seems to be pushing Mo for something, _pushing_ , and Mo hasn’t ever had the best control over his temper, so more often than not they’re snapping at one another, too bothered by He Tian and his nonsense to pay attention to anything that might be real. Not believing he’d want to be real, not with Mo Guan Shan. 

At school they nip and growl at one another, He Tian’s face always plastered with a shit eating grin, pleased to be getting underneath Mo’s skin, he’s sure. His long fingers always making thick ropes around his wrist, arm snaking around his shoulders. He Tian is a creeping vine that will suffocate Mo Guan Shan, or that’s how it feels. For whatever reason Mo’s breath becoming short and belaboured whenever Tian is right next to him. Mo ends up pinching the bridge of his nose whenever he catches sight of He Tian, sure a headache is on its merry way. Swiftly. 

He Tian still has his groupies around him, who follow him from class to class, ask him what he’ll do this evening, this weekend, whether he can attend their party, their society social. Mo watches from afar, hands shoved into his pockets, scorning them, head swivelling around quickly should Tian catch him staring. These girls come to him and fall in his arms, believing he won’t take their hearts and gobble them up, like they’ll be different. They’re _special_. And then they’re surprised when He Tian does exactly that, when they present it to him on a silver platter, and he smiles his wide grin, pointed teeth and dark eyes, and he eats it. _Did you think I’d give it back?_

He sees the ghosts of them following Tian around school, grey and listless, calling after him quietly but only receiving a wave. Each time He Tian is with a new, ever changing paramour, walking them home from school only for them to be jilted weeks later. He Tian sees the grey, discarded girls following him around school, Mo knows he does, when his eyes lock with theirs, he smiles without mercy. 

Mo wonders whether this week it will be any different, whether He Tian might stop bothering with him, his little game worn out now, the new shiny conquest that Mo presents has wilted and formed a rusty patina. He’s scared of it, just a little, that moment when He Tian will not meet him at the gates, when he won’t accost him after class or force him to do this or that together. He knows it’s coming, he fears it. But that doesn’t stop him from hoping, in his heart of hearts, that it won’t stop, that Tian will always be there when he turns around.

He’s knows it will hurt. 

Occasionally he catches He Tian looking at him, considering him, licking his lips like he’s ready to part them and devour Mo’s heart as soon as he presents it to him. Like he’s weighing him up, how big will this one be, how long will it sustain me? The look is as terrifying as it is beguiling, easy to lose yourself in. 

Guan Shan considers whether this is how those girls felt, suddenly a sweet, golden thing held in He Tian’s broad hands, rising up amongst their peers, _special_ indeed. Until one day, after they’ve given He Tian what he wanted all along, finding themselves suddenly grey, dull, with He Tian striding along in front of them, beaming with a special light they’d given him, their beating heart in his own chest. Abandoned and alone once again. 

They both spiral together like astral bodies being sucked into a black hole, a force of nature, as inevitable as it was tragic. Mo wants to say that he isn’t a pretty girl, that He Tian will get tired of him eventually, sooner rather than later, he wants to say that he hasn’t got the heart to give. But he’s afraid of He Tian finding that fact out. 

Then She Li has to turn up. 

Mo always avoided him like you would an easily pissed off lion, the head of the pride and happy to remind you of it with a lazy swipe of it’s paw. Mo can’t be sure but he doesn’t think normal people have this many regrets in their life, that he has somehow lived too much already, fucked up enough for a whole lifetime. And yet it keeps happening. A laundry list of mistakes that scroll in front of his eyes, the concern - _what would his mother think?_ Always playing on his mind.

She Li had always known about him, he doesn’t know how or _why_ , but he had looked at Mo in a way which meant he was intrigued about him in a clinical way. He can see it somehow in how Mo is too afraid to hold his eyes, that violence comes to him but the squick in his stomach at the thought of hurting someone is just as fast. He knows that Mo does not look at girls the way other boys do. He knows when She Li pierces his ears with a blunt push pin it is less about teaching him a lesson and more about letting him know that he’s _owned_. 

So when He Tian turns up, a raging blur of black and white, it doesn’t match up with Mo’s expectations. This is not the He Tian who fucks girls like it’s going out of fashion, who doesn’t get caught up with anyone, like a swallow set free on the breeze. There’s something in his eyes unreadable to Mo, something he doesn’t wish to decipher, but it speaks of blood and a tight cloying feeling at the pit of his stomach. Is this what he presents to He Tian? Is this why he hadn’t grown tired of him yet? He was bruised knuckles and a fight, a competition that a sweet girl wouldn’t ever present to him. Mo doesn’t know how he feels about that, doesn’t know if he wants to be that person anymore, but maybe it’s too late to change. Maybe he’s too tired to try. 

When He Tian doesn’t bother him for an explanation either, afterwards, that plagues him. Not ready to tell him why he owes such a debt to a person like She Li, but also not ready to let Tian believe any rumour he might hear. It’s unbearable because it’s like He Tian is pretending to _understand_ him, like he needs no explanation because he already _knows_ or worse - because it doesn’t matter to him, that he will follow Mo and fight for Mo whatever the case may be. And that really makes Mo hate him, it springs forth the taste of iron to his tongue, his eyebrows bunch together and his fists clench. He doesn’t _understand_ , and to pretend he does is the worst kind of insult, playing Mo for a fool, stringing him along like some clueless puppy. 

Mo doesn’t want to be some book, picked easily off a shelf, He Tian’s fingers rifling treacherously within his pages, pulling out his secrets, thumbing through to find the most interesting parts of him before putting him aside. Why do these thoughts always end in He Tian _leaving_ , Mo grumbles to himself.

He’s made very much aware, day and night, that He Tian is different than him, better than him. Through his clothes, the effortless way in which he seems to do just about everything, his grades, his easy friendships, the ring of awe inspired followers that are always constantly surrounding him. Things are just easy for some people, huh? It is this which makes Mo Guan Shan so bitter, so unreceptive to He Tian, but rather than them going their separate ways and never bothering again, they simply collide back together over, and over. Two incompatible entities, still somehow drawn together only to ricochet off one another with increasing violence.

There are moments in which Mo feels completely vindicated in his hatred, his suspicion. That He Tian is only trying him on for size, an experiment. Like when he kisses him. That awful day.

Sometimes he can’t tell what He Tian wants, every teasing bone in his body gone, but replaced by some strange hunger, whether to humiliate or dominate him he isn’t sure. Sometimes he wants to push him away with both hands, even though he’d accepted this is all he could ever be for He Tian, he doesn’t quite want to believe it. He wants to be _more_ than a plaything, the small, scared voice in his chest wanting to tell He Tian he’s only human, that he feels things too, _more_ , even than anyone else. To be gentle with him, _please_ , or to leave him alone, to live in his own private kind of shame.

 _‘Can’t tell me you’ve never kissed someone,’_ he’d said, head tilting to the side, smile showing pointed teeth. And then he had, he’d pressed lips so soft they should be criminal against Mo’s own, probably chapped and bitten. It was so unfair that this was how it transpired, right in the open for everyone to see and stare, where He Tian had pushed his tongue against his mouth insistently like he was trying to claim a prize, win a bet. Maybe he was. 

He Tian sounds annoyed when he pulls away, rough and hard in pulling Mo’s hands away from his mouth, his own face turning dark when he finds Mo shaking and upset, wetness clinging to his pale eyelashes. 

_‘Do I disgust you that much?’_ He’d asked him then, as Mo tries to quell his tears, inner panic rising to unmanageable levels. He Tian’s eyes are hidden within strands of his glossy black hair, he sounds bored almost, but hidden within that are several shades of hurt Mo doesn’t know how to deal with. 

After he’d finally escaped, hands hiding within his sleeves, fingers shaking together like leaves, he thinks of She Li and how he similarly wasn’t strong enough to fight against him then. It makes him feel smaller than he is, much younger, when kids were just as cruel, where he sat alone in class and could hardly bear to speak a word because someone would snigger at it. He doesn’t want He Tian to be that, doesn’t want to believe him capable of it. 

It’s times like these where he’s sure Tian is just waiting for him to give in, to break, so that the joke can finally be over, so he can go back to fucking girls and not Mo’s head. Because that’s another thing - he _isn’t_ fucking girls, at least not that Mo can see. He doesn’t take any on dates and he doesn’t invite them back to his apartment, instead he’s following Mo to his part time job or having him come over to cook. He’s easily lying to them to avoid the societies he so graciously would attend before, a wave of his hand and disappointed faces behind him, only to sling an arm around Mo and match his pace, no explanations passing between them. 

Mo tries not to think too deeply of these things, Tian’s motives are unknown and murky and bewildering at the best of times. Still, there are moments when Tian’s eyes turn moody and utterly unreadable, when he does something that makes Mo’s stomach turn uneasy, worse than, when it makes Mo want to cry and whimper with a lump in his throat, hands numb. That’s when he’s sure it’s close, the raise of an eyebrow, the sneer in his voice, _‘Why would I ever like someone like you.’_

But then he will go home, sit in the quiet of his room and hold his head in his hands, feeling as trapped as a rat in a cage, spinning in a wheel, round and round and round again, _no escape_. 

His phone will then buzz and it’s an innocuous text from He Tian which says nothing at all but if Mo were to believe more in He Tian and more in himself and maybe more in ‘ _love’_ he might believe that texts about whether Mo was home and that he should come over and cook, _‘I’ll pay,_ ’ were really saying _‘I’m sorry,’_ and _‘Are you alright?’_ and _‘I won’t do it again.’_

It is then that Mo Guan Shan will consider that perhaps comfort does not come easily or naturally to He Tian, a creature born and raised alongside the cold metal of a gun. Mo will think that perhaps this is all he can give him, right now, all he knows. And what else can Mo really expect. That realisation catches in his throat and tugs away at chest - a boy not taught to love, trying to make sense of the world without any guidance, all the rule books in a language he doesn't understand. 

There are those odd shining moments that Mo will need to go over in his head, check with himself whether they were real or imaginary things, because they don’t quite match up with the image of He Tian he firmly keeps at the forefront of his mind. A reminder to him to not fuck up, to recognise the kind of creature He Tian was, sharp claws, pointed teeth, that he _could_ not and _would_ not be tamed, and that it was a fool’s errand to ever imagine he could be, would ever want to be. That is when he attempts to quiet the thoughts that perhaps He Tian doesn’t know any better, doesn’t know how to do it right, the words he’d said that day in the kitchen - _How will I know how if you don’t show me?_ \- keep Mo from sleep for a long while.

There are moments like when they go to the restaurant, where any other sane person would have written Mo off as some nutcase who can’t sit in some fancy establishment and simply eat a meal, that has a panic attic and throws up for fuck sake, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes. 

When instead of turning tail and running in the other direction He Tian steps towards him confidently, compassionately, his hand coming to cup Mo’s face, leading his head gently to his shoulder, the words, _‘I’m here,_ ’ a soft and whispered prayer that hangs heavily between them. 

Mo considers then that the girls who had so easily given in were perhaps not that stupid after all, that giving your heart away to He Tian might not be such a hard task, that the hands that so gently brush aside tears from Mo’s cheeks are warm and capable and he can imagine entrusting him with the very thing that keeps him alive. 

When he finds his head leaning against He Tian’s shoulder in the car, that first softness, not for show but because he’d wanted to, that is when there’s a weakness in the carefully maintained armour Mo keeps around him at all times. A tenderness he hadn’t considered He Tian capable of, or considered he might have ever received it. The idea that bothers him, plagues him for days afterwards, is the regret he had seen in He Tian’s face after they’d left the restaurant, following Mo only inches behind, feet scuffing the back of Mo’s trainers. He’d looked like it pained him to see Mo distressed, like any anguish befalling Mo would afflict He Tian just as sincerely. 

It contradicts everything he’d known before. He can’t fathom how to be anything but the stubborn kid people liked to break in, with bruised knuckles and a dimple between his eyebrows from an ever present frown. A challenge or a puzzle to solve and then throw away. He doesn’t know why on earth anyone might try to treat him, of all things, _gently_. 

He wants to ask why He Tian hasn’t stopped yet. 

There are worse things that Mo keeps to himself in the dark, secrets that he ferrets away, keeping them under lock and key, under a loose floorboard no one else knows about. Things just between the two of them. Like being called once in the dead of night, He Tian’s voice cracking over his mobile phone, the rustling of covers and a puff of harried breath. A nightmare, and yet he’d called him. Like Mo Guan Shan would be the first on anyone’s list, like he might somehow be a comfort to him, like hearing his voice could calm the disquiet of his mind. It disturbs him, keeps him up, makes him want to press his fingers to buttons and ask He Tian if he’s alright straight after he hangs up. But that’s a dangerous game and Mo doesn’t have any chips left, nothing remaining to bargain with. The fluttering of his heart tells him otherwise, but he pushes that aside. Your heart doesn’t know what’s best, it hadn’t made good odds before this, so he wouldn’t be trusting it now. 

He’d finally felt they maybe were getting somewhere, that day when they’d both been accosted - or more that Mo had found himself in another typical situation, back against the wall and ready to take a beating. Until He Tian had appeared, almost as if fate decreed it, and then when their hands had joined, _‘You go first,’_ he’d said, hand pushing at Mo to leave, turning to face the ever increasing amount of men coming to fight them. 

Mo had never been good at doing as he was told, so he’d taken Tian’s hand and they’d run together, hearts beating in chests of their own, like bird’s wings against cages, through back alleys with smoking kitchen staff, blurring as they rush past, footsteps echoing off the tiny enclosed spaces. It felt like their breath mingled, like a kiss but better, breathing together, running together until Mo couldn’t push any longer. He Tian a flurry of black, limbs and blood and a determination which told Mo, whispered to him urgently that this was more than he’d thought, this was more than he could handle. _Get out._

And then He Tian had abruptly left after stationing him in a lonely hospital bed, leaving just when Mo was starting to think- to think he _did_ understand.

Instead he’d come back days later, smelling of smoke and mystery, eyes darker and more guarded than before. Mo wants to press a hand against his chest and ask him where he was, where he’s been, he so desperately wants for him to smile like he did before, to tease him. He never thinks he’d ask for that. He wants to remind him of running away together, down alleyways, and ask whether He Tian had felt it too, like they were one, that it was like kissing, not like the kiss before, better, running together and breathing together and looking into one another’s eyes and finally seeing clearly what had been so guarded before. Hands clasped, unflinchingly. He doesn’t remember ever letting go.

He Tian had dropped his bag, barely able to speak a word, stripped off in front of Mo (much to his chagrin) and gone to sleep, on top of Mo and instantly just like _that_ , out like a light. When Mo finally extricates himself it suddenly hits him that this must be the first place He Tian had returned to - sticker attached to his bag still from the airport, passport jutting out of a pocket of his jacket. He certainly smelled like he’d just got off a plane, looked like he hadn’t slept ever since he left. Instead of returning to his apartment he’d come here, to Mo, to his bed. Just like that. Like it was easy, obvious. 

The nightmare that wakes him and petrifies Mo Guan Shan - the sound of someone dying echoing around the apartment, his feet skidding against the floorboards in a desperate attempt to get to He Tian. Fear only quelled by Mo’s fingers, his gentle hands gripped by Tian, eyes searching his, rolling around the room on high alert, shoulders only barely relaxing when he realises where he is. Mo’s fingers trapped, squeezed too tightly for Mo to believe he’s recovered fully, the nightmare still a thick fog swimming around his head.

 _‘You care that much about me?’_ he’d said.

_‘Thank you.’_

He Tian’s head dips low, face slack while sweat still rolls off his bare chest. Mo Guan Shan sups up the words, only believing them now in the state He Tian is in, unable to lie under this type of duress. All of a sudden he wants to fill up the empty space within He Tian’s chest with his own beating heart, to let it warm and sustain him, nurse him some. Mo Guan Shan wants to double over himself at the force at which the thought takes him.

He had almost kissed him then, chest aching at the tremble in He Tian’s too strong shoulders which seemed to be able to carry any burden, suddenly slumped and defeated. Afraid. He hadn’t imagined He Tian could be afraid, but that realisation makes his thumb press tentatively against Tian’s knuckles, rub against the tendons there. The small boy he once was wants to reach forward, wants to hold He Tian gently against his chest, head on his shoulder like he’d once done for him, but the little boy and Mo Guan Shan are equally as afraid of that as one another, not friends any longer, not fighting for the same side. So he doesn’t.

They sit side by side then in Mo’s room, close and quiet, thighs pressing closely together, the smell of He Tian’s fear in the air and rubbing against Mo’s sensitive nerves the wrong way. He wants to say that he can be what He Tian wants him to be, needs him to be. That he doesn’t mind being another heartless being, if He Tian needs it, he’ll do it. Resolve lying in tatters on the floor, thinking that at least his heart can be He Tian’s, that if something of his can be, then maybe that’s enough. Thinks it might have a better chance in He Tian's chest than his own. 

But despite the look he shoots him, his hand lying ever so casually by He Tian’s thigh, He Tian does not take him up on it, he does not force a kiss that Mo Guan Shan would have accepted, he does not grab for his waist in a way which Mo would have leaned into. And that’s what makes things different. _Difficult_.

There are no girls now, and Tian follows Mo around school like a dark cloud, full of things Mo feels are threatening to spill over at any moment, upend onto his head. Mo could turn and find He Tian’s eyes on him anywhere, not curious but knowing, not searching, but decided. Mo hates it, hates that whatever it is He Tian knows, he’s resolved over - and he’s just waiting for Mo to figure it out. He Tian doesn’t entertain his other friends, but falls into step next to Mo Guan Shan, slinging an arm over his shoulder that Mo doesn’t bat away too quickly anymore because he’s curious as to why it’s there, what piece of the puzzle this is, how he might decipher it. 

It irks Mo then, makes him twitch and spit vitriol, _‘I’m so bothered by you of course I’ll remember you for the rest of my life,’_ he says and it somehow turns from a curse into a confession, He Tian looking at him in that awful, infuriating, unreadable way. When had He Tian become so wholly hard to understand, when did his motives become so surreptitious. Mo’s hackles raise as if expecting the rug to fly from out under his feet at any moment, even when in his heart of hearts he knows it won’t happen, not with how He Tian scans the corridor for him, not with how his pace falls in line with Mo’s, not with how He Tian doesn’t even attempt to fill the silence between them any longer, like he’s waiting for Mo to talk about what’s really amongst them rather than fill the space with chattering nonsense. 

Time passes in a blur, beds shared but not, nights without sleep and harsh voices, pushing and pulling and pleading with each other to give in, pull closer or push further away. The jumps in their relationship so erratic it feels like years culminate in a few short days, words full of meaning snuck through in conversation, significant actions, like He Tian pushing him to safety, disguised as nothing, Mo Guan Shan folding away the words that yearn to spill out of his mouth. You almost died. _You almost left me._ How could you be so reckless. _Where would I be without you._

 _'Don’t abandon me,'_ He Tian had muttered, standing on the stairs, when he had told Guan Shan that what he admired about him was that he was not afraid of darkness. ' _I chose you,'_ he had said, as if that’s how he saw himself, thought Mo Guan Shan to be a good keeper for his particular type of chaos, his curse. 

_'Give me a pair of pure black studs,'_ he had told Tian, thinking a small indiscretion would be nothing among the rest of them, Mo standing knee deep in things he shouldn’t have said, shouldn’t have done. ' _You can't control me,'_ he had ground out, reminded He Tian, but even to his own ears it sounds empty, like he’s begging, pleading with him. He Tian allows him that smokescreen, that lie. A falsity. Mo thinks that being He Tian’s would be as suffocating as his embrace often was, but isn’t it nice to be held so close? Mo Guan Shan hadn’t ever thought that before and so it terrifies him when he thinks it now. 

_'Did you have a nightmare? Little Mo don’t be afraid~'_ He’d run to him without realising, annoyed as always by the gaggle of students around Tian, but the solid weight, the knowledge that He Tian would always follow him rests in his belly. He’d known something was wrong as soon as he’d seen the turn of Mo’s head, and he’d still smiled, like tending to him is some sort of blessing, like comforting Mo is an honour. He wants to tell him no one’s ever thought that before, that He Tian is wrong to think it, that he’s putting too much stock in him, wasting his time. _Don’t cherish me,_ he wants to plead, don’t act like I’m worthwhile, it will hurt too much when you realise I’m not. It makes Mo dizzy, wondering if anyone else got to have Tian like this. Whether he smiled at anyone else like this. He doesn’t think he does, or the whole word would be in love with him. 

_I won’t annoy you again, goodbye._

Why had it hurt so much, to know He Tian was hurting. Why did it matter to him? Why did he yearn like this? He’d run all the way to He Tian’s place, apron rumpled and left on a counter. Walking into the lobby feels like walking into the jaws of the dragon, all the while knowing you won’t return. 

And then they’re standing together in He Tian’s lonesome apartment again, the feeling of knowing He Tian forever a lie brought on by a brain malfunction, surely. 

They’re standing in He Tian’s bedroom and somehow He Tian is asking him to never leave, his hands tremble a little as they rest against Mo’s arms, bringing his hands up to cup against his ears like he’s blocking out the rest of the world, concentrating on just the two of them, here. Then Mo is the one who feels like the asshole. Like he’s the last one to be informed, to catch up, the kid that’s always behind the rest of the class. Some inexplicable voice in the back of his head tells him that of course it would be He Tian, _of course_ it would. 

He thinks that perhaps the reason why He Tian had left all those girls so quickly, why he couldn’t bear to stick around is because he couldn’t bear to be abandoned himself, forgotten and tossed to one side. A dragon with a hole in its chest, wounded and incapable of flight, snapping its jaws at you for show.

 _‘I realised I don’t like feeling alone,_ ’ He Tian had mumbled, the small utterance creating a cacophony of noise in Mo’s head, his brain trained to look for hidden meaning in He Tian’s words, like he’d been rewired so the most important thing, obviously, was deciphering what he meant. _Feeling_ alone is different to _being_ alone, and it makes Mo consider that perhaps all that time He Tian had spent with girls, with easy friends, hadn’t strictly left him alone, but still _feeling_ lonely. That maybe, for He Tian, being surrounded with people wasn’t quite the thing, but that if he had that- that _one_ person... 

Mo knows he looks like something small with a terrible hunger, that his eyes say that he could just be another empty person for He Tian, if that’s what he wants. If that will halt the trembling in his hands. He wants to beg, to ask him to _please_ stop looking at him in that way, to please just _take_ it, take what you want because at least then Mo will know his place as he has always done, a thing to be used. He can understand that, he can grow familiar with the notion, there’s no friction for a gear slotting into its rightful place.

But, ah, _there it is._

In He Tian’s hands there is something small and fluttering, a tiny thing. His heart looks small enough to be a child’s, Mo tries to ignore how He Tian's hands shake as they hold onto it, hold onto him. 

His lips ask him to stay, his eyes ask him to never leave. 

_‘Stay with me,’_ are three final nails in the coffin, He Tian’s dark eyes looking upwards towards him, too open and honest. Mo Guan Shan touches his fingertips to He Tian’s, feeling the thrum of blood there, the beating of a small, scared heart. It feels like a bird. 

He stays. 


End file.
